Gaming & Culture —

Week in gaming: Duke Forever, Battlefield 3, Skyrim

This week we reviewed Duke Nukem Forever, explored the power of the Wii U, …

So... played any good games lately? Our admittedly harsh review of Duke Nukem Forever drew strong thoughts from both sides of the debate, as did the resulting PR implosion when a company working on the game's publicity threatened to blacklist certain outlets based on poor reviews. If I thought I had it bad having to play this game and then continually talk about it, I have to admit that's nothing next to losing your job for trying to defend it.

In better news, Skyrim looks great, and we know a bit more about the power of the Wii U. It has been quite the week, so stop by and see what stories you might have missed.

Duke Nukem's PR threatens to punish sites that run negative reviews: An explicit threat was made by a PR company working with 2K Games: since some of the Duke Nukem Forever reviews went "too far," some outlets could be frozen out from future review copies of games. An apology came later, but for the first time a PR firm went public with the possibility of a blacklist.

Battlefield 3 preorder weapon and item bonuses annoy fans: If you preorder Battlefield 3 at one of two retailers in the UK, you'll receive a free content pack that gives you powerful weapons and items on the first day of release. Fans of the game, unsurprisingly, have an issue with this.

Skyrim's dragon battles top off impressive demo: It's hard to judge a game like Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim by watching someone else play it, but the details and combat shown in our demo were enough to make us want the game in a way that's animalistic.